How can I remove photos from my work computer?

[Tagbert]

I have a personal laptop and a work laptop and I am signed in on iCloud for both. I use iCloud for my photos for my main photo library. The problem is that this library appears both my personal and work computers. How can I unlink or disable photos on the work laptop?

I thought I might uncheck "iCloud Photos" on the work laptop but I worry that if I do that, it will turn it off for all devices. Last time I did that to clear up an issue it took a long time to resend from iCloud.

I also though I might just delete the photo library file on the work laptop, but again, not sure what the impact would be.

I do have optimized storage turned on but it only saves about 10%.

All of the online instructions assume you are just talking about your one computer and don't take the more complex situation into account.

Any suggestions?

 

[0128672]

I have iCloud Photos turned off on my one of my machines that I keep offline most of the time, but enabled on other devices. Disabling on one doesn’t affect the others.

”When you turn off an iCloud feature on a device, information stored only in iCloud for that feature is no longer available on that device. However, it is still available on iCloud.com and on other devices where that feature is turned on.”

iCloud User Guide

Use iCloud to keep photos, files, data, and more up to date across your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Windows PC, and on iCloud.com.

support.apple.com

 

[casperes1996]

I feel 90% certain that just unticking that should remove *only* this one device from iCloud Photos, and keep all other devices as they are.
I will try it now on my laptop for you

 

[casperes1996]

Seems things have pretty much been concluded at this point

 

[Tagbert]

thank you, Casperes. I'll do that.

That will recover 26GB on my work laptop.

 

[posguy99]

Easy. Remove your personal iCloud from your work computer, problem solved. It shouldn't be there in the first place.

 

[Tagbert]

Easy. Remove your personal iCloud from your work computer, problem solved. It shouldn't be there in the first place.

It wasn't clear that disabling iCloud photos referred to that computer or the entire account. I didn't want to uncheck it and go through the whole process of resending photos on my personal laptop. I had to do that a few months ago to fix another issue and it was a time consuming process.

As Casperes pointed out (but the preferences panel didn't) this setting is specific to that machine so I was able to uncheck it and remove the local photos copies and save 26GB of space.

 

[posguy99]

As Casperes pointed out (but the preferences panel didn't) this setting is specific to that machine so I was able to uncheck it and remove the local photos copies and save 26GB of space.

But why is your personal iCloud on your work computer in the first place?

 

[chrfr]

But why is your personal iCloud on your work computer in the first place?

Why is the OP's employer's policy your concern?

 

[posguy99]

Why is the OP's employer's policy your concern?

I'm just always curious how someone gets to the decision that doing that is OK.

 

[timsutcliffe]

I'm just always curious how someone gets to the decision that doing that is OK.

Tell us more about your concerns.

 

[Tagbert]

But why is your personal iCloud on your work computer in the first place?

Because I wanted some of my preferred tools. Company policy does not block this. The photos connection was an inadvertent accident that I have since addressed. I find Apple's messaging about the preferences setting for this to be unclear for a non-simple setup.